Bellinger v. Lane County Local Government Boundary Commission

915 P.2d 430, 140 Or. App. 185, 1996 Ore. App. LEXIS 545
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedApril 17, 1996
DocketEC JC 94-08, CA A83372
StatusPublished

This text of 915 P.2d 430 (Bellinger v. Lane County Local Government Boundary Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bellinger v. Lane County Local Government Boundary Commission, 915 P.2d 430, 140 Or. App. 185, 1996 Ore. App. LEXIS 545 (Or. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinion

DEITS, P. J.

Petitioners seek review of the Lane County Local Government Boundary Commission’s (commission) expedited approval, pursuant to ORS 199.466,1 of Junction City’s annexation of property that is proximate to and, apparently, was formerly included in an exclusive farm use zone. We affirm.

The petition for annexation was filed by the owner of the affected property on January 12,1994. On the same day, the Lane County governing body amended the Junction City comprehensive plan to include the property in the city’s urban growth boundary (UGB).2 We emphasize that this [188]*188appeal is not from that land use decision or those described in footnote 2; it concerns only the annexation approval. Several of petitioners’ arguments appear to be aimed at issues that may well have been cognizable in the land use proceedings but are not germane to this one.

The annexation proceeded in accordance with ORS 199.466. Petitioners were not among those entitled to receive a copy of the staff analysis and recommendation under ORS 199.466(1). No recipient of the analysis and recommendation requested proceedings under ORS 199.461 et seq, and the annexation was deemed approved on February 7,1994.

Petitioners make three assignments of error. The first requires no discussion, and the third depends for its success on that of the second. Petitioners assert in the second assignment that the commission staffs analysis and recommendation was deficient in a variety of ways. Petitioners contend generally that the staff “omitted material information,” and failed to “address relevant agency standards” adequately or, in some instances, at all.

Before turning to the specific points of petitioners’ argument that call for discussion, we must address one threshold argument that petitioners make and one that the commission makes regarding ORS 199.466 and our interpretation of it in McGowan v. Lane County Local Govt. Bdry. Comm., 102 Or App 381, 795 P2d 560, rev den 310 Or 612 (1990). ORS 199.466(1) requires the commission staff to prepare a “brief analysis of the petition or application and a recommendation for disposition of the proceeding.” (Emphasis supplied.) That document is to be sent to a defined and small number of persons and entities, who may abort the expedited process and require the full-scale procedures of ORS 199.461 et seq to be followed. Petitioners agree that they are not among the persons upon whom the statute confers those rights and abilities. They nevertheless argue:

“[W]hile this Court held in McGowan that ORS 199.466(3) does not imbue persons without participatory rights with a right to notice of an expedited annexation procedure, ORS 199.466(3), indicates that such persons are not to be shut out from the expedited review process entirely. This appeal therefore presents the opportunity to resolve an important [189]*189issue left after McGowan: on what basis may a person without statutory notice rights challenge a boundary commission’s approval of an expedited annexation petition under ORS 199.463(3)?
“Petitioners contend the answer to this question inheres in the requirement of an ‘analysis and recommendation’ under ORS 199.466. While this Court observed in McGowan that ORS 199.466 ‘expressly obviates the procedural requirements of ORS 199.461 to ORS 199.463/ McGowan, 102 Or App at 384, it also noted that ORS 199.466 did not jettison all procedural requirements. Rather, this Court observed that ORS 199.466 expressly requires a ‘brief analysis and recommendation of the commission’s executive officer * * *.’ McGowan, 102 Or App at 383.” (Emphasis petitioners’.)

We noted in McGowan that persons in a position similar to petitioners here, who were not entitled to receive the staff analysis, had a right to seek review in this court under ORS 199.466(3). 102 Or App at 383 n 1, 387. However, we rejected the contention that that right somehow enlarges the procedural or substantive interests that such persons enjoy under other provisions of the statute. Id. at 387. The thrust of McGowan is that those interests are minimal, and that the objective of the statute in general is to minimize procedural and substantive requirements and to make the heightened requirements of other annexation statutes inapplicable to the expedited process. As we noted in McGowan, in addressing the petitioners’ argument that procedures parallel to those set forth in other statutes should be read into ORS 199.466, “the absence of [stated] comparable requirements in ORS 199.466 * * * makes it all the clearer that the legislature intended exactly what it said — or did not say — in ORS 199.466.” Id. at 386. Petitioners’ reliance on McGowan as support for a broad reading of ORS 199.466 is misplaced. The wisdom of the truncated annexation procedures that the statute allows is a matter for the legislature.

As noted, we held in McGowan that persons in the position of petitioners, who are not entitled to receive the staff report, may nevertheless have standing to seek judicial review under ORS 199.466(3).

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Related

McGowan v. Lane County Local Government Boundary Commission
795 P.2d 560 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1990)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
915 P.2d 430, 140 Or. App. 185, 1996 Ore. App. LEXIS 545, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bellinger-v-lane-county-local-government-boundary-commission-orctapp-1996.